RAVE: Iratus: Lord of the Dead

 It is strange. Sometimes I get in the mood to play a new game and get started but sometimes I just swing back to some old favorites and get caught up playing that instead. Such is the case with Iratus: Lord of the Dead. I first played this game on my Steam Deck way before I ever played Darkest Dungeon and funny enough a lot of critics of Iratus call it a Darkest Dungeon clone. Because I was strangely afraid of playing Darkest Dungeon (due to its perceived difficulty) I decided to try something similar but no way near as hard. Within a couple days playing it I truly feel in love with Iratus and honestly I remember nothing but fun times when I was playing it. Fast forward a long stint with Darkest Dungeon and all it's DLCs, I got in the mood to go back to Iratus. I also felt that if my desktop PC was able to handle Darkest Dungeon it should not have a problem with Iratus too and I was able to run it without a hitch.

Within a couple hours I found myself drawn back into the world of Iratus and this time I wanted to try some new minions I did not use previously. One of the by-products from switching from the Steam Deck to my desktop was losing all my save data so I hate to start from scratch progress wise and I oddly did not mind that. So without any more fanfare, we now have our RAVE for Iratus: Lord of the Dead.

    

Iratus is a dungeon-crawler roguelite similar to Darkest Dungeon (DD) as I previously mentioned. You play as Iratus, a rather cocky necromancer who is trying to conquer the world. Unlike some roguelites the lost you incur are not to yourself but to the minions you control and when you lose a minion they are gone for good. That Level 15 Banshee you've been slowly levelling up with all them cool items? Gone if you have a particularly bad battle. Sometimes you can lose a whole squad and have to start all over with a brand new team. However unless you lose all your minions you can rarely be defeated which make it a bit easier compared to some roguelites.

Iratus is not the most graphically intense game but the graphics are very serviceable especially for an indie game in this genre. It is on the same scale as Darkest Dungeon with just key frames of animation being the focus and definitely better than Indies' Lies minimalist approach. It also has a gothic art style to it, similar to Darkest Dungeon but with a more Dungeons and Dragon approach compared to DD's Lovecraftian style. The sound is okay, nothing to write home about however the guy who does the voice lines for Iratus is definitely having a good time and it shows in his performance (even tho hearing the same lines over and over can get a bit grating). The sound effects are nice tho and very satisfying when you score hits or cast spells. It is however in the gameplay where Iratus shines.

As mentioned above, Iratus is a tough game too however it is not as hard as say Darkest Dungeon. Thankfully Iratus does not borrow from Darkest Dungeon's mechanic where you get a disease and afflictions even if you have a good run. The upgrade economy is much more generous too compared to DD. Also as a nice twist because you are playing the bad guys, you get to inflict the stress on your opponents instead of the other way around. Some of the cooler teams in Iratus actually do stress damage instead of physical damage and you can actually scare enemies to death or install so much fear in them that they run away or turn on their allies. Its actually one of the cooler elements that the thing you feared the most in DD is now a benefit for you in Iratus.

The minions are what sells Iratus to me. Using resources you obtain while playing you combine these resources to make minions. When ether it be a fearsome Werewolf, a sturdy reliable Skeleton to a backstabbing conniving Lost Soul. You have so many choices and making up a team of maximum 4 characters, you can make endless combinations of teams and find synergy for days. During my most recent run for example, I use a mostly stress team with some melee hitters for the stress resistant folks (which there are some) and it was a blast especially because I never tried a stress team before. This constant discover of new teams and new ways of playing kept me going for 3 back to back runs and unlike some roguelites, a full run aka beating the game is an investment especially compared to a 30-40 min run in Risk of Rain 2. On average, if you want to beat Iratus, you normally are in it for a long haul of a 3 to 4 hr campaign.

Each minion can also be built according to your preference with each having multiple abilities you can build one way or another and they also have a special attacks too which are powered by Iratus' resource called 'wrath' and these are the most spectacular attacks in their arsenals. Iratus is no back-seat driver too, he can contribute with spells at least once a round and potions (which you craft with resources) which can either buff his squad or nerf the opposition. Iratus also has something snarky to say when ether his squad scores a kill or a he hits his opponents with a nasty spell. He is like the narrator of the game much like the narrator in DD (but honestly, nowhere near as cool).

Like all roguelites, the fun comes from the random elements the game throws at you, the challenge of a particularly hard boss or when you sometimes find a broken team combination and just steam roll over your enemies. Along the way there is chances to earn cool items for you or your minions, sacrifice your minions for more resources and even random events with multiple choices (similar to Slay the Spire and Indies' Lies). Whilst the challenge is there, honestly Iratus is one of the easier roguelites and completely wipes do happen but it is not as common. If anything, if you are starting off on this type of roguelites, I would highly recommend it because it'll definitely ease you into the genre. The game even has automatic auto-saves and multiple difficulty choices to make it easier to pick up. The game has since released some DLC which added some more minions (and new area with harder enemies which unlocks the 'true' ending)  and an extra character or two. I enjoyed this game so much I bought all the DLC (Wrath of the Necromancer) and even brought a 'supporter pack' (which included the OST, alternative skins and a digital strategy guide) and a couple of the alternative skin packs as well. Unfrozen, the makers of the game has recently announced they are working on a sequel and another project which is very interesting.

Can you believe this is Fanart?! Amazing work from Coremort.

Iratus: Lord of the Dead is basically Darkest Dungeon but you are not a fan of how difficult DD gets or you just want to play a bad guy for once. The game has a lot of charm and very easy to pick up and play as well. You have numerous minions at your disposal and each one brings their own unique flare to the game and along the way you will slay many heroes. I honestly feel because I enjoyed Iratus, I was able to tackle Darkest Dungeon and we know how that ended *cough* 5 blogs back to back *cough*. It gets a RAVE which is the highest recommendation on this blog and on top of that, it is not that expensive to pick up. It is constantly on sale along with the DLCs and it is well worth your time and money.

C'mon. Sometimes it is good to be bad.

AV

RAVE: Darkest Dungeon

 Normally, I try to get blogs out at least once a week. However this one has been delayed mainly because I can't stop playing it enough to actual write a blog about it. It is time tho; here is my RAVE for

As always, we will begin with a brief history and what made me pick up this game. As I've explored the Roguelike genre, I heard many good things about a indie game called 'Darkest Dungeon'. I heard it was brutal, challenging and very, very unforgiving. I actual brought this game for Steam back in November 2022 and I got it for a steal of only $3.80 which now I look back on it, is amazing because of the now 180+ hours of entertainment I've got from it.

However due to the nature of how the game is best played with Mouse and Keyboard (M&K), I did not immediately sprung to playing it. For awhile I made an excuse it was because I did not want to play a M&K game and I had other games to play instead. However I eventually did learn to use M&K and ironically, one of the first games I learned it was with 'Iratus: Lord of the Dead', a game I've mentioned before on this blog and one of my favorite Roguelikes. 'Iratus' is heavily inspired by 'Darkest Dungeon' and now I've played both I can clearly see how much it influenced it. However I played the 'inspired by' before I actually played what inspired it. Sure, I brought 'Iratus' before 'Darkest Dungeon' and I really, really enjoyed 'Iratus'. I put in a lot of hours and beat the game twice, on the easiest and standard difficulties. I did many runs and bought all the DLC and even some of skin packs. 'Iratus' deserves its own RAVE and perhaps I'll replay it in the future and write one then but this is a 'Darkest Dungeon' blog.

So after playing the Hell out of 'Iratus' I played other games and I think my 'Risk of Rain 2' obsession kicked in not soon after and we all know how long that went for. I, however had 'Darkest Dungeon' in the back of my head. I wanted to play it and I had a couple of false starts before we finally started in earnest, about a month ago and boy oh boy, we have not looked back.

Another big deciding factor of giving 'Darkest Dungeon' a real go was me finding out it was 'old' enough to played on my desktop computer and I, no longer had to set up my Steam Deck to play it. The easier access of 'DD' on my desktop meant I could play it anytime I was on my desktop and spoiler; I am on my desktop a lot. Being able to play a M&K game on a desktop makes things so much easier and it is also why previous RAVES 'Indies' Lies'  and 'Deadbolt' also got played a lot. Surprisingly, I recently tried to play it on my Steam Deck and even through it works, the M&K made a massive difference in how much I enjoyed it. The controller options just felt limiting and I've become more a M&K person lately, strange because most of my gaming career I've always had a controller or a arcade stick in my hands. Okay, enough of the how we got here because we are here now and we are more and likely will not be going anywhere soon. I, honestly see 'Darkest Dungeon' becoming an ongoing feature on my blogs much like how 'Risk of Rain 2' was. You see, it is that addictive to me.

To quote it's Steam page, 'Darkest Dungeon' is a challenging gothic roguelike turn based RPG about the psychological stresses of adventuring. Can you keep your heroes together when all hope is lost? They are not lying to you either when they call it 'challenging'. My first couple of days with this game really took me for a ride and I deleted so many campaigns when things got too tough and I'll ran out of money and recruits to keep playing it. When I was new to the 'Stress' system, I would let highly stressed adventurers go into back to back missions and watch them fall apart and turn on their allies and sometimes, even worst, ruin a mission. I would dread the minute a 'Affliction' popped up on the screen and one of character's lost their marbles and became 'Sadistic' or 'Machoistic' or even worst 'Hopeless' and refuse to help the squad, or hurt themselves and sometimes even refused to be healed when they were about to die. Everything I heard about the game was true. This game was unforgiving and it really pushed me to the limit many times. Also just like any good Roguelikes, the deaths are final and anytime you lost an adventurer, you'll have to start from scratch with a new one. Sometimes they did not even have to die but you had to cut them loose because they came back so broken, it would not make sense to keep them cause it would take more money to heal them, money you did not have.

The rarest of the rare, an Inspired Hero!!

However, sometimes the RNG (random number generator) is on your side and instead of rolling an 'Affliction' you adventurer gets 'Inspired' and well that is one of the best feelings and every-time it actual happened I got super hyped (except the one time when one adventurer got Inspired and die on the next turn. As I said, unforgiving). Moments like that are few and far between and 90% of times it is opposite and I slowly learned that I should not let my adventurers reach their breaking points and actually invested in a bigger roster so the stressed individuals can rest whilst the younger, fresher recruits go and do the job instead.

Speaking of adventurers, it time to talk about the very colorful cast of characters you can use. Each one brings its own playstyle and nuances to the field. Be it, the Vestal whom can heal your whole team and swing a mean mace when she needs too. Or would you prefer to use the tank Man at Arms who specializes in taking hits, screaming folks into submission and setting up comeback ripostes or go completely off the rails and use the Jester whom is great for relieving stress but when the time comes, swings with the best of them. The games base roster of 15 (16 if you count the palate swap Musketeer whom shares all the skills with the Arbalest with her own twist) and each character comes with their own quirks and character lines. The Bounty Hunter is grim and focused on collecting his booty whilst the Highway Man is super cocky when things go his way. Each member has really endeared themselves to me and I can honestly say I do not have a 'favorite' character yet. At first I really did not like the Antiquarian because she had nothing but support skills and a very weak attack but I realize the purpose of a Antiquarian is helping you get more loot and I can honestly say I am only doing better now money-wise because I learned how to use her. Also early in my time with the game, I did not understand how strong the Occultist was because he kept healing adventurers for 1-2 hit points and bleeding them and how his playstyle seem too much of a mixed bag. Now the Occultist can slot into any team because of his amazing bag of tricks. Having a healer on the front lines and still able to hit with the best of them is just chef kiss. Each character has a diverse skill set too and you can mix and match them according to your team's composition. Some really work but everyone does have their preferred spot and you'll figure it out as you keep playing the game. Honestly, that and being able to personalize each adventurer and even naming them and choosing a specific color for them has made losses all the more sad when they succumb to the evils of this world.

If you get this reference, we can be best of friends.

The game even warns you, not every hero will survive and you are bound to fail some missions and abandon others. This is the nature of 'Darkest Dungeon'. This game is so unforgiving that you can successful complete a mission, with full health and low or zero stress and the game still decides to give your adventurer the 'Black Plague' disease (which screws with your stats and make you even more susceptible to more diseases... yay) with no warning. On top of that, it might give you a real life quirk like Kleptomania and cause you adventurer to random steal loot for themselves and not share with the squad. Such is the perils of dungeon diving in this world. Then you find something sending them to treatment centers to get rid of said disease or negative quirks but you can also lock in positive ones you have picked up as well. Never have I've played a game which almost gleefully likes to set you up for fail but for some strange reason because I am who I am, the guy who likes to die (in video games) and loves a challenge I keep playing it and even funnier, enjoying it.

However enjoying it I am. I just hit a 170 hrs and beaten the final boss and I haven't even started on the DLCs (which I still need to purchase). I am enjoying the base game (mind you with some very needed Quality of Life mods like Faster Walking and Expanded Inventory) and then there is so much more I can explore. The afore-mentioned DLCs including one that is heavily inspired by H.P Lovecraft's 'The Color From Space' and the big one, 'The Crimson Court' which adds a lot more bosses, a new class and VAMPIRES!!

Maybe its the RPG elements without all the extra fluff that comes with RPGs (walking to and from places, having to find McGuffins to open locked doors, the hunt for stronger, better weapons). Maybe its the addictive hook of leveling up a squad of killers and finding new synergies with them and finding innovative set-ups like twin Crusaders who constantly swap position with each other so they can both access their very OP Holy Lance move. Maybe its the cool narrator who always has something to say or maybe its beating the odds even tho it is stacked heavily against you. I also love the setting being a fan of Lovecraftian themes and gothic fantasy in general. Hell, maybe its the town management of keeping a home base (in this case your Hamlet/ Estate) up and running and your army in top shape which I never realized I can do. Traditionally I've ignore a lot of base building games but in Darkest Dungeon, all this micro-managing is part and parcel of the experience and I've grown to enjoy that too.

Every thing in this game, hits all the right spots for me and I feel its honestly why I need to do this long RAVE about it. Despite it beating me down so many times, I still get back up and hit 'Embark' and prepare a new squad. As promised, this is the beginning, we will probably be back with our 2 cents on the DLC's adventurers, the Flagellant and the Shield Breaker and of course review the DLCs. If you enjoy a challenging turn based game that asks you a lot but rewards you as well, you will not regret diving into this 'Darkest Dungeon'.

AV